Part 2

"We are gathered here to form the ghost of Jerome Chester Chisholm, deceased, erstwhile sales manager of the Pinnacle Office & Household Appliance Corp. We have all eternity, to be sure, but why waste it? Coalesce, please, as rapidly as possible. For purposes of comparison, your prototype is standing here beside me. Take it or leave it. That's your affair."

There were howls of "Chuck him out," "chiseler," "heel," "stuffed shirt," and many, many less elegant epithets. Then an ominous silence descended. The demon quietly pointed to a spot on the stage and the procession started. One by one the specters mounted the stage, marched to the spot and stood on it. Succeeding ones came on, each melting imperceptibly into the one that had been there before. Gradually the resultant figure took on more definite shape and looked far more solid than any single shade in the hall. For many of them were so tenuous as to be hardly visible.

"Would you mind, sir," asked Mr. Chisholm, not knowing any better way to address a demon, "telling me what this is all about? And after this monkey business is over, when do I get my trial?"

"Trial?" The demon laughed. "In one sense you have had your trial. This is the result. In another sense, this is your trial. In either case, the verdict is already found and the sentence fixed."

"I don't get you," said Mr. Chisholm. "Who are all these ... er ... spooks? And what have they got to do with me? They look like a flock of comic Valentines."

"They have plenty to do with you. They _are_ you."

"Me! You're crazy. I'm me." He struck himself on the chest.

"No. You are only one aspect of you," corrected the demon. "You are a ghost now, and nothing more. Ghosts are intangible, immaterial things--made of dream stuff, as your poets say. What you call you is your own estimate of you. These creatures flocking up onto the stage are other people's estimates of you. _You_--the you that we recognize--is the composite of them all. Stick around. You are going to learn something."

* * * * *

Chisholm turned his gaze back at the oncoming file of shades. They were ghastly cartoons of himself, and malicious ones at that. Many of them were unintelligible.

"Hey," he said, "what's that thing coming up--that slender wisp of smoke with the lumpy feet? If that is a conception of me, the guy that thought it up has gone surrealistic."

The demon looked.

"Oh, that. Yes, it's weak. It is offered by a fellow named Percy Hilyer. He roomed with you at school and has almost forgotten you. He does remember that you were lean and lanky then and used to swipe his socks and wear holes in them."

"That's a hell of a thing to hold against a guy," complained Chisholm.

The demon shrugged.

"That is the way reputations are made. How do you like this one?"

"This one" was the rambunctious shade who had tried to take charge of the meeting at the outset. He was egregiously repulsive.

"That," announced the demon blandly, "is the contribution of one Maizie Delmar. Judging from its robustness and solidity, she knew you recently and well."

Chisholm's jaw had dropped and his eyes bulged. The thing was incredible. Not Maizie's. Maizie was regular; dumb, maybe, but they got along.

"I take it Maizie was the tactful sort," remarked the demon with a sly drawl, noting the amazement on Chisholm's loose face. Then, "Here comes one that might suit you better."

It was a fat, squally baby, drooling and flapping its pudgy arms.

"One of your mother's contributions. Her favorite of many. You might admire some, but they are all on the helpless side--not at all in keeping with your hardboiled idea of the way to do things."

Chisholm stood aghast and watched the endless procession. On they came, one vile caricature after another. Nobody seemed to have forgotten him. He expected the specter furnished by Firrel to be bad. It was. Malice was not its creator, but sheer contempt. Chisholm had to turn his face when it clambered up onto the stage. The office girls' offering differed little from Maizie's except in intensity. The one held by Hardy was a cruel surprise. He had done so much for Hardy. But he had forgotten how he had made Hardy pay through the nose for favors.

The greatest shocks were to follow. He steeled himself for whatever opinions those first two wives held, but the current one had done a devastating job of analysis. Even the demon whistled. Interspersed between the major blows were minor ones, and not always shadowy. Bootblacks, waiters, taxi drivers--on almost every casual contact he had left a mark. Out of the lot there was only one that was glowingly heroic. He could not refrain from asking the demon about it. The demon bent his insight onto the wraith and pronounced:

"A girl you met once--a pick-up. You kissed her on the Drive that night, and then lost her phone number, you lucky dog."

"Lucky?"

"Yes. She never had a chance to know you better."

Mr. Chisholm was glum. It wasn't right to be pilloried that way. They simply couldn't do that to him. To hell with what all those people thought. Who were they, anyhow? A lot of nitwit salesmen and office help, gold-diggers and climbers! He knew he was all right. He had got along. They were jealous and envious, that's what. He nudged the demon.

"Hey," he called, "this is a democracy, ain't it? If these soreheads have a vote, so do I. Don't _I_ come in?"

"Sure, sure. It ought to help a lot, too. All these figures are weighted, you have noticed, by degree of intimacy and one thing or another. Since you have probably thought more about yourself than anybody else has, even if you've been wrong most of the time, your opinion counts."

Chisholm looked down at himself confidently, and then his confidence began to ooze. His own personality, it appeared, even when viewed from his own standpoint, was more nebulous than he thought. He had never taken himself apart with the critical fury employed by such persons as Maizie, his wives and some others. It looked as if the almost-finished monstrosity standing in the center of the stage was going to be the image handed down to posterity.

"It's not fair," he wailed. "What do all those yapping people really know about me--motives, and all that? I never did anything I didn't think was right, I never--"

"Neither did Nero," said the demon calmly, "nor Torquemada, nor your estimable contemporary, Hitler. Nevertheless, we cannot take an Ego at its own valuation. Not where others are involved."

Chisholm took a shuddering look at the hideous thing that was the summation of all his world thought of him. It was intolerable. That, then, was the verdict the demon had spoken of.

"Your sentence," said the demon, as if he knew the thought, "is to contemplate it from now on. It is all yours--your life's work. At least it's definite, if that is any consolation."

"I can't, I can't," moaned Mr. Chisholm.

"Don't make things worse," warned the demon.

The composite spook had just turned a bright, lemon yellow.

THE END.